Fewer than 20 men a month take paid parental leave

Senior writer

It might be called paid parental leave but so far only one father has taken it for every 500 mothers.

Since Labor introduced paid parental leave 2½ years ago, more than 300,000 women have taken the 18-week minimum-wage payment after a baby's birth - a rate of about 10,000 a month. But official data presented at a recent Senate estimates hearing revealed fewer than 20 fathers a month have taken up the leave - a ratio of about 500 mothers for every father.

Many households can't afford to transfer the leave to the father because ... they are still the primary breadwinner.

University of Sydney paid parental leave authority Professor Marian Baird, said this ratio highlighted the strength of ''motherhood culture'' in Australia and the overwhelming community preference for women to provide primary care for newborns.

''In Australia, it is the women that take the leave, no matter what it's called - parental or maternity leave. Mothering trumps fathering in the use of these policies.''

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Most families are also financially better off if the mother takes leave after the birth of a child because fathers tend to earn more than their partners.

''Many households can't afford to transfer the leave to the father because in most cases they are still the primary breadwinner,'' Professor Baird said.

Paid parental leave became a focal point of the election campaign after Tony Abbott confirmed he would scrap Labor's policy and replace it with a much more generous paid parental leave scheme.

Abbott's $5.5 billion a year proposal - the most expensive policy promise of the entire election campaign - will replace a mother's full-time wage up to $75,000 for six months (or the minimum wage if it is higher). It can also be transferred to the father but the payment remains pegged to the mother's salary.

The generosity of the scheme could entice more fathers to stay at home to care for a baby, especially for a second or third newborn. But Professor Baird does not anticipate a significant increase in the proportion of fathers taking paid parental leave.

The University of South Australia's Professor Barbara Pocock said workplace cultures often discouraged fathers from taking parental leave.

''We've got masculine work cultures that are really strong in Australia compared with parts of Europe where the male take-up of rate of paternity leave is much higher,'' she said.

There has been a much bigger response by fathers to a separate leave policy targeted at them - the so called ''dad and partner pay'' introduced in January. That scheme provides two weeks of government-funded pay to fathers or same-sex partners at the minimum wage within the first year of a baby's life. Between January 1 and April 12 this year almost 20,000 people claimed dad and partner pay.

''I think it's positive so many dads and partners have claimed this leave,'' Professor Baird said.